What Scotland Squad?

18 May 2011 05:12

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Jamie Murphy is focussed on his club football and didn't really notice he was left out of the national squad. Jamie Murphy was not going to let his omission from the recently announced Scotland squad put him off his preparations for the Scottish Cup final. Murphy was tipped by many for a call-up to the squad for the Carling Nations Cup campaign after scoring 12 goals for Motherwell this season, mostly from a wide left position. He enjoyed a good goalscoring record with Scotland Under-21s and showed his taste for the big stage with a wonderful solo goal in the 3-0 semi-final win over St Johnstone. That goal and his all-round display earned him the player-of-the-round prize, which he also won for the quarter-finals, and he followed that with the SPL young player award for April. Craig Levein ignored this evidence and Celtic winger James Forrest and Aberdeen striker Chris Maguire were named named ahead of Murphy. However, the forward insists the announcement of the international squad was entirely overshadowed by his preparations for the Hampden meeting with Celtic. He said: "It wasn't even in my mind. All I'm thinking about is the cup final. It's a massive game and it wouldn't be right to think about anything else. I'm only trying to do my best for Motherwell Football Club and if that means playing well in a cup final and winning a cup for Motherwell, that's definitely what I want." Murphy brushed off suggestions that the cup final was a good opportunity to show his worth to Levein. He said: "Every game is a chance to prove yourself. Obviously cup finals are on the telly and everyone watches them but we're trying to treat it like a normal game, to do the right things and hopefully everyone puts in a big performance. We'll try to prepare the same way as the semi-final because it seemed to work and we came out the traps flying."